Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

how you can lobby to ban a drug that actually works because it'll eat into the profits of the pharmas' "treatments" that cost ten times as much and don't do a gosh darn thing

That's like arguing that because some cops are on the take we shouldn't have police. Plus, it should be noted that it is far more common for companies to lobby against regulations which do serve a value to the public.

Having been deeply enamored of libertarianism in my younger days I still have affection for it, and many of their sentiments are useful when you get up to the margins of an over-regulated state. But in the real world it works the same as the drive for lower taxes: the impulse keeps thrusting away no matter what the circumstances or whether it's a good idea in that environment.

The reductio absurdum of libertarianism is the idea that the government should not mandate fire codes because the market will take care of it: if a club catches on fire and burns all the patrons to death then nobody will go there anymore.

And now, this.

[alfablue]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

The reason Libertarians are gaining ground with this, though, is that regulation can be just as corrupt. Take a look at the insanity surrounding the Toilet Seat Administration, or how you can lobby to ban a drug that actually works because it'll eat into the profits of the pharmas' "treatments" that cost ten times as much and don't do a gosh darn thing. I'm sure some form of equilibrium will be met eventually, though.

I'm not saying that regulations are all great and there's no corruption.

But having one or a handful or them bad and corrupt does not make them all bad and corrupt. That's my point.

And the Libs lean far more on "all bad" side.

edit- I remember a recent election run where one of the candidates proclaimed that they would immediately shut the door on the agency that regulates us. When I pointed that out to a supporter of theirs who's entire paycheck is from the agency rules, well...

[joecct]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

Lies! Lies!! Lies!!!

http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/u...eapons-to-isis

[Handyman]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

Two fun stories popping up today:
- Trump claims to have seen video taken by Iranian military of money being offloaded off of a plane, and describes it in detail. There is no such known public video. Either he's making up what he saw in the video, or he's repeating classified information he saw in a security briefing.
- Melania claims she would go back to Slovenia every few months to get stamps for her visa, because she cared so deeply about following our immigration rules. That kind of visa, though, would be a temporary visa, where should be not be allowed to work, which includes modeling, so either she made up the story about the stamps or she was illegally working with the wrong kind of visa (and taking jobs away from American models).

That is brilliant!

[MaizeRage]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

Lies! Lies!! Lies!!!

http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/u...eapons-to-isis

"long and rather convoluted"

Even the home side isn't impressed.

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

"long and rather convoluted"

Even the home side isn't impressed.

Every time I see a story from The Federalist my heart dies a little. I am in the process of reading all of the actual Federalist Papers (and will be for the next few years), and they are in the main so beautifully expressed despite being written on very short deadlines and somewhere between about 8th and 28th on the respective authors' To Do lists. They are a gift to political science and to mankind in general.

And then these bozos go and hijack the name for their "Breitbart without the Nuance" juvenalia. It's just too depressing.

[Handyman]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

"long and rather convoluted"

Even the home side isn't impressed.

Yeah they might want to work on their wording

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

The Strongman always lurking in the shadows.

A majority of Americans favor either highly authoritarian (31 percent) or authoritarian (26 percent) traits. In contrast, roughly one-quarter express preferences for either highly autonomous (10 percent) or autonomous (13 percent) traits. One in five Americans (20 percent) has mixed preferences.

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

That's like arguing that because some cops are on the take we shouldn't have police. Plus, it should be noted that it is far more common for companies to lobby against regulations which do serve a value to the public.

Having been deeply enamored of libertarianism in my younger days I still have affection for it, and many of their sentiments are useful when you get up to the margins of an over-regulated state. But in the real world it works the same as the drive for lower taxes: the impulse keeps thrusting away no matter what the circumstances or whether it's a good idea in that environment.

The reductio absurdum of libertarianism is the idea that the government should not mandate fire codes because the market will take care of it: if a club catches on fire and burns all the patrons to death then nobody will go there anymore.

And now, this.

The same could be said about the wackos that think we should bow to the almighty magic badge just because there are some "good cops". Maybe you should actually read the whole post and note the part about the middle ground.

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

I'm not saying that regulations are all great and there's no corruption.

But having one or a handful or them bad and corrupt does not make them all bad and corrupt. That's my point.

And the Libs lean far more on "all bad" side.

edit- I remember a recent election run where one of the candidates proclaimed that they would immediately shut the door on the agency that regulates us. When I pointed that out to a supporter of theirs who's entire paycheck is from the agency rules, well...

Hence, meeting some form of equilibrium.

But yeah, you gotta love the lobbyists. Obummer spoke out against the VH-71, and all of a sudden Chuckles started throwing a fit because of what it would do to Tioga County (NY).

[Handyman]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

The Most Honest Thing Said on CNN in a While

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

The Most Honest Thing Said on CNN in a While

I'm not surprised the establishment GOP would feel this way. After all, for the last gosh-knows-how-long, they've been trying to mould the candidates to fit their agenda, rather than revolving the agenda around the beliefs of the candidates. Of course, when you end up following a Marxist...

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

The Most Honest Thing Said on CNN in a While

Good for her. I'm now a fan.

[Rover]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

Ya know, its not that I don't appreciate "longtime GOP staffer" this and "right wing columnist" that coming out against Trump, but when will some actual elected officials start doing so? Yeah yeah that Hanna guy did but he's retiring, so really no risk there. Time for the party to either grow a pair or admit they're in 100% agreement with Trump but wish he wouldn't express their views out loud so often.

[ericredaxe]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVI: KICK THE BABY!

The think that bothers me about the Libritarians is the whole de-regulation of everything stance.

I don't see that as a good idea at all.

Before I go into this- I'm not saying that all regulation is good, or that we should never take a good look at regulations. Uuber vs. taxis is a good example- *perhaps* some of the taxi laws need to be re-looked at. But I don't think all of them should go away.

Never have people or industry really been able to "self regulate" anything. Ever. From worker abuses to environmental abuses to economic abuses to customer abuses- history has consistently shown that money and greed will always win over doing the right thing. Always.

Then sources of regulation comes from something or someone being abused in a bad way. So one MUST understand why a regulation is in place before you can actually get rid of it. Some have used the recent economic problems which can be sourced to de-regulation of Great Depression economic laws as good examples.

The statement "regulations are bad for business" is also a gross oversimplification. Everyone likes to quite Ayn Rand her book Atlas Shrugged as some kind of bible, where over regulation will lead to people giving up and killing all industry. When reality is very much different. Again, I'm not saying all regulations are not bad for business. But it's pretty easy to show that well thought out regulations have allowed industries to really flourish, and even to the point of adding some really high paying jobs JUST to meet regulations. All the while, the state of the art allows the products to be sill reasonably priced and MORE useful to the consumer.

I'm in one of those industries, and my specific job is to just find ways to meet the regulations. There are 100's of people like me in this company- all with very good paying jobs, and you still buy the product. It's gotten to to the point that we can use the regulations to gain a competitive advantage- so it ends up winning for everyone.

Blindly saying that regulations are bad may seem logical based on some of the ideas that is spouted, but reality doesn't reflect this "common sense."

(and a side rant, I hate the touting of "common sense" solutions. Rarely are problems and solutions that obvious- if they were, they would not be problems)

Well, just as there are far right republicans and moderate republicans, far left democrats and moderate democrats, there are also far (insert direction here) libertarians and moderate libertarians. I view Johnson / Weld as fairly moderate.

On a side note, I do think that if Weld were at the top of the ticket, they would easily be over their 15% by now.